4x03 Minimal Loss
by harbinger333
Summary: A retelling of "Minimal Loss" from Emily's POV. Details have been changed, but still may spoil key features of the episode. Established Hotch x Prentiss, with M rating for possible later chapters.
1. Chapter 1

This is my re-imagining of the "Criminal Minds" episode, "Minimal Loss". The case is mostly similar, but details have been changed as it is told from Emily's point of view. Established Hotch and Prentiss.

I do not own these characters nor "Criminal Minds". All rights to Jeff Davis and CBS / ABC

I know I did the right thing. I know that, but that doesn't make the blows any softer, doesn't make the bruises any lighter, doesn't make the recovery any faster.

Maybe it should, but it doesn't.

"Which one of you is it?"

I looked at Reid instinctively and cursed myself for doing it. Cyrus was a master manipulator; I could only hope th distress was significant enough to cloud his reading of our faces.

"They said on the news that one of you is an FBI agent. I told you not to lie to me, so which one of you is it?" He was seething, but the eerie calmness about him was what made me act, I think. He was excited.

"It's me." I blurted out confidently. I didn't need to look at Reid's face to feel the guilt, fear, and gratitude radiating from him. Instead, I sat up straighter, and did my best to look Cyrus directly enough in the eyes to agitate him into believing me but not enough for him to be able to really read my deception. It worked; he grabbed me by the hair and whipped my head back so that my body had no choice but to follow on the floor.

I yelped, more from shock than pain, but I felt Cyrus's hand tighten on my scalp anyway. Reid shot me a desperate look, like he wanted to step in but knew it would only end in tragedy. I nodded at him reassuringly, hoping he noticed it despite my limited range of head motion at the moment.

Outside the tunnel doors, Cyrus's gun-toting lacky helped him carry me up the stairs and to what looked like a storage room. It was square, lined with industrial shelving stocked with canned food and first aid supplies. The stale air hit my face as soon as Cyrus unlocked the door, and I immediately looked around for a window. This looked like it was intended to be a bedroom, and I doubt it would have been attractive to new members if it looked like a prison cell. Out of the corner of my right eye, I see it. There are no blinds because shelving blocks the view, but there's enough distance between the pane and the supplies that the arc reflectors should be able to detect the vibrations. I'll have to be close to it to cut through the clattering of the cans when he starts.

The henchman drops me unceremoniously to my knees and locks the door behind him, and I have to fight the urge to spit at him when he turns to go. I don't have much time to fantasize about it, though, because as soon as I stand, Cyrus spins me to face him and slaps me across the face. It stings, but it's not serious, and that's when the uneasiness in my stomach morphs into full-blown horror. A slap from a man like Cyrus is not punishment, it's commonplace. He's enjoying to foreplay. He's going to drag it out, make it progressively worse as he builds, if I don't do something to throw him off.

The worst part is, I know I could beat him. I've trained in krav maga for years in preparation for my Interpol deep cover missions, and Derek and I have been grappling after hours in the FBI boxing gym for years. I have a combat knife in the sheath of my heeled black boot, and another clipped to the center of my bra, flush along my sternum. Hotch makes everyone who joins the team complete an inordinate amount of defense and survival training. He says it's because of the nature of our unit, that we have to be vigilant because we run headlong toward psychos. He would never want anyone else to know, but I learned about a month after we started dating that he pays for it all himself because he can't bear the idea of one of his own being unprepared when he could have done something. Cyrus is governed by blind fury and years of slapping around submissive women and maybe even children, but I know that if I fought back in earnest, I could crush him. But I can't, because he will definitely take it out on Reid if he escapes, and there is no telling how the die-hards would react if I did seriously injure him. It could end in a massacre. So I have to try to minimize his damage without actively fighting back. I have to just suck it up, otherwise giving myself up as the agent will amount to nothing.

As his other fist connects with my gut, a brief image of Hotch flashes through my mind. I double over, cough out some bile. I see Hotch's face in my head, that crease between his dark eyebrows deep as ever, fighting the urge to barge in here but knowing he has to stay composed. I feel the tautness of his every nerve as he wars with himself, and I try to stay quiet so he doesn't have to bear any more than necessary.

Cyrus is spouting scripture at me, but it's just background noise. He grabs my hips and turns me roughly, pushing me into the shelving face first. My arms come up intuitively, but I still feel the warmth of blood as the edge of a shelf gashes my left cheekbone. My knees buckle, but he props me up into an upright position before placing both hands on my shoulder and pushing me down onto his striking knee. I just barely get my overlapped hands on top of his kneecap, probably enough to keep from breaking the ribs.

I don't even think about it before I stand as straight as possible, apparently noticing a pause in his rant in some distant corner of my frazzled mind. Hotch's excruciating expression still in my mind's eye, I say as confidently as I can, "I can take it."

The rage in his eyes becomes almost animalistic, unchained in an instant. If I weren't so busy trying not to die and make my audience suffer any more, I would have found the shift fascinating. I know I've successfully disrupted his plan by provoking him. I know he's going to skip the middle game and go straight for the grand finale, and it's going to hurt like a motherfucker, but at least it will be faster. And it has the added bonus of annoying the shit out of him.

He rams me back into the unit two, three times, shaking some food loose from the top shelf, before throwing me into a mirror leaning in the corner. The shards cut my forehead and arms; I can feel tiny slivers burrowing into my wrists and elbows as blood starts to stain my sleeves. But I'm as close to the window as I'm going to be, so I take the chance, in case they're still planning to come in. They're not supposed to, and I know they know that. But I also know that Hotch is out there right now, listening to this in abject horror, pounding his fists on the command center table and hopefully not breaking anything vital. I know Morgan is cursing me under his breath for antagonizing Cyrus. I know Rossi is wracking his brain for a hostage situation where a hard entry before it was time ended satisfactorily, not coming up with a damn thing. I know JJ is pacing, hand on her swollen stomach, blaming herself for not being able to control the media coverage. I hope that Reid can't hear me being slammed around up here, but I'm sure he's listening just in case. And I know I haven't done a bang-up job of minimizing my groans and cries. So I do it again, fully expecting this bastard to beat me unconscious.

"I said, I can take it."

He pours everything he's got left into swinging his foot at the side of my kneecap, hurdling me toward the cement floor with more vigor than it would have taken to get me there. I curl onto my side to shield my vital organs, but I can't stifle my screams as his steel-toed boots come down once, twice, three times on my side in devastating kicks. So much for not breaking any ribs.

His vitriol finally cuts through the anguish: "The pride cometh before the fall." He spews it at me, spittle flying from his lips as he leans down to roll me onto my back. I'm too weak to resist much, but I do my best to stare him down.

With one last stomp to the dead center of my chest, he strides out of the room and locks the door, leaving me in a stiflingly hot dusk to count my bruises. A thready bit of light filters through the stocked shelves, and I stare at it as though it were a lifeline in my sea of pain, hoping with the little I have left that they got my message, hoping that Hotch heard me, before I finally, mercifully pass out.

When my heavy, blood-crusted eyes finally open again, I'm in an unassuming bedroom on top of a well-maintained quilt. There's a crucifix on the wall directly opposite me. The room is small, but I can't hear anyone in the corridor outside. Attempting to sit up sends waves of radiating pain alternated by waves of nausea, and I know I'll be useless for at least another few hours.

I strain to hear again, just to be safe, and decide it's worth the risk. With more effort than I remember putting into anything before, I drag my foot up and catch the toe of my bootie on the slatted plastic blinds. I repeat a message, over and over, hoping that they have parabolic arcs on the window despite the blinds and hoping that someone happens to be listening.

My leg shakes with the effort and my voice is scratchy at best, but relief sluices over me when I see laser sight come through the glass. I repeat my message one more time, "I see you. I know you're coming. I can try to get the women and children down to the tunnel but I need to know what time you're coming." It blinks three times; I lean up to make sure it actually is dark outside. "Three A.M?" It bobs a few times, like a person nodding affirmative.

"Copy. Reid is in the chapel with Cyrus. Please, remember there are a lot of children here. And please, please, tell Hotch that I am _fine."_ As I say it, it becomes true. The pain alleviates and the nausea subsides, the strength in my muscles eases back into me as I picture the relief on Hotch's face when he gets this message. It's all going to be fine.

The light bobs a few more times. "Thank you." I hear soft footfalls on the stairs, definitely not Cyrus. "Someone's coming." The light disappears, and though it was a far cry from a companion, I find myself missing it's presence already. Jessica's mom unlocks the door, washcloth and glass of water in hand.

I don't see Reid until we're almost out of the building; we didn't need to be told twice to bolt when Jessica grabbed the detonator. I whip around to look at him, just behind me, when I see one of the solar panels sliding off the roof. The supports must have broken in the last blast.

"Reid!" I shriek like a banshee as I dive for him, knocking him out of the way of the crashing metal and glass and landing heavily on top of him. I swear I can feel the cracks in my ribs deepen into chasms, but I can't bring myself to care. My hand instinctively reaches out to brush Reid's hair off his forehead, checking for damage as I achingly pull myself off the cement.

"Reid? Are you ok?" Please God, after everything we've been through the last three days, tell me I didn't just kill him trying to save his life. He stirs, and I breathe fully for the first time since we met Cyrus.

"Em, can you please stop saving me? It's getting old." He coughs as he jokes, clearing his lungs of dust. I laugh around the pain in my abdomen, doing my best not to show him how much pain is setting in. He reaches out to trace the cut on my cheek, but I catch his hand first.

"Hey, I'm fine. I mean it. It is not as bad as it looks." When the concern and guilt don't leave his features, I add, "Reid, listen to me. It was the right call, and I would do it again in a heartbeat. Ok?" He nods, but I don't get to really examine to see if it's genuine.

"Emily! Reid! EMILY?!" I hear Hotch's frenzied voice cut through all the other noise like a knife through butter; I nearly break my neck turning to search for him. "Emily!"

"He so likes you better." Reid quips, and I know he's going to be fine. Thankfully.

I shove his arm goodnaturedly. "Yeah, well, you're not sleeping with him."

"How true. Go, before he hurts something screaming like that. Seriously, I'm fine."

I give his hand a squeeze in thanks before I shuffle in the direction of his calls. "Hotch! We're over here!"

He finds me before I even see him, and then he's covering my body with his and cradling my head in his arms. "Jesus Christ, Emily, thank God you're alright. You're alright? Are you sure?"

I pull back to place a hand on each side of his face, smiling genuinely. "Yes, Hotch, I'm fine. We both are."

His eyebrows knit together. "Fuck, I didn't even ask about Reid. Please don't tell him about that."

I laugh, though it's starting to sting more and more. "I promise."

His eyes cast downward, and I can see tears clinging to his cheeks. It looks like they're following trails from earlier today, and that gives me a feeling in my gut worse than any of the blows Cyrus delivered. "I thought... I wasn't sure you were going to be ok."

I pull his face even closer to mine so our noses are almost touching, forcing him to look me directly in the eyes and obscuring my wounds. "Hotch, I need you to listen to me. I just said the same thing to Reid, and to be honest, I don't have the energy to keep repeating it. I am fine. It was the best choice for everyone in there. Reid needed to keep up his rapport with Cyrus."

He nods fervently, but tears are still escaping his squeezed-shut eyes. "Hotch, I meant what I said earlier. I can take it. And I would do it again in a second. Please believe that."

His dark eyes finally meet mine, and I see that I'm beginning to convince him. Maybe it will take time for him to believe it fully, maybe I'll have to show him, but it's all true. I stroke his short hair absently, relishing his closeness but wishing his vest weren't between us. "I love you. So, so much." he says.

A few tears begin to glide down my own cheeks; it finally hits me how close I was to never being able to touch him again. The thought sends a shudder through me, and he places a lingering kiss on my forehead as though reading my mind. "I know." I smile wryly at him, quoting what he knows to be one of my favorite movies, and he finally laughs. It's a sound I'll never take for granted again.

"Good." He pulls away a little and I already want him back. "I'm going to go tell the others that you guys are ok. You need to get to an EMT."

His hand runs down my arm to catch my own small, pale hand and tug me toward the waiting ambulances. I'm not sure what makes me do it, but the urge to hold on to him is overwhelming. His finally at-ease body spins back to me when he feels me resisting, a beautifully quizzical look on his face. The words tumble out without my green light, and part of me is listening while the other just tries to get them in a sensical order.

"Hotch…" They're choking me, these feelings, and I feel racking sobs begin despite the violent protests of my chest. "Hotch, I know I like to be witty and sarcastic and have the last word, but I need you to know that I really, really love you. God, I love you so much, I don't even know how it all fits in one person. You are the happiest, kindest, fiercest, best part of my whole life, and I spend every moment of every day trying to be worthy of how much you love me." I clutch at his forearms just as he draws me to his chest, and it's the only place I ever want to be. My hair dampens where he leaves teary kisses.

"Emily, I hope you know that I feel the exact same way, But with one critical difference." I tilt my face up in question, seeing my stained face in the reflection of his eyes. "I know I'll never, ever, as long as I live, actually be worthy of you."

Hopefully to be continued. Thanks for reading!

x harbinger333


	2. Chapter 2

"This is just ridiculous." I protest, wincing away from the EMT's fiftieth antiseptic wipe.

"This is procedure." Hotch replies, somehow amused, firm, and protective all at once.

I scoff, but the pain in my… well, in my _everything_ is becoming genuinely excruciating with every passing swipe of the disinfectant and corresponding smart-ass remark. "Hotch, this is not 'procedure'. This is overkill, and you know it." He rolls his dark eyes without taking them off of the EMT's deft hand.

She asks abruptly, "How long have you two been together?" We both turn to her in shock – she hasn't spoken since she ordered me to sit on the edge of the rig. A sly, soft smile crosses her features, makes me think that she has administered these treatments to her own children's scrapes a thousand times in addition to her patients'. A short, dark haired Latina woman, she gives off an aura of understanding and solidness. I like her.

"Uh, about a year." Hotch responds with uncharacteristic reticence, clearly nonplussed that Ms. Alvarez, as her badge reads, saw right through our carefully-constructed, professional-profiler deceit. I really haven't cared who knew about us since the team found out. Anyway, tragedy has a way of tearing down both physical and emotional walls with the same random ease.

"That sounds about right. Congratulations." She winks at him and he grins in spite of himself, which makes me feel just a tiny bit better. "Anyway, I've said this to a lot of people in my day, but you, my dear, are actually lucky to be alive." Her petite hands begin putting shiny steel instruments in their casings and used cloths in the bio-waste disposal bin without really looking.

A foot to my right, Hotch strikes a defiant stance, allowing himself to indulge in the fact that Alvarez knows we're together. "See, Emily? I told you that you needed medical attention."

The kindly EMT nods her agreement, to my growing dismay. "Indeed. Miss Prentiss, you have at least three cracked ribs, evulsions to both of your palms, both knees, and your forehead, a sprained left wrist, a gash on your right cheek that will require stiches, almost definitely a minor concussion, and roughly sixty percent of your body is covered with scrapes, bruises, cuts, or some combination thereof."

Hotch's tired face blanches more with every injury she ticks off; it would be almost comical if it didn't fill me with such guilt. "Don't forget this." I hold up my arm against its screaming protests, showing her the tear on my brown leather jacket sleeve.

"Emily please, this is serious!" Hotch scolds, but it lacks any real bite. He's blaming himself, not me. Funny how that works. Guilt never seems to touch those who cause pain, only those who bear witness to it.

"Hotch, I _am_ serious! This was my favorite jacket!" That's not a lie, at least. It was a beautiful, dark brown leather jacket, thin and soft, with a drape closure that pinned the right side to my left shoulder. It's a little casual for the BAU, so I was excited when I got to wear it for the consultation. God, that was almost four days ago.

He softens when Alvarez chuckles under her breath, and runs a hand gently through my matted hair. It seems to be the one action he could have chosen that doesn't hurt me at all.

"Can we please go to the hospital, just to be safe? I'll even stop for one of those ridiculous machiatto-whatever-the-hell-they-are drinks on the way there, if you want."

My eyebrows shoot up in consideration, but my aversion to the emergency room wins out. "No. Close, but not quite."

He looks genuinely exasperated, like he does when Reid won't stop rattling off peripheral information or Rossi is being unnecessarily cryptic in an attempt to seem wise and aloof. "But – "

"Excuse me, Agent," Alvarez cuts in, saving me from more of Hotch's bargaining, some of which I'm sure I couldn't have resisted, "From what I understand, Miss Prentiss has been in a hostage situation for three days. She volunteered herself for this beating to spare another of your agents, she prevented you gun-toting G-men from charging in before the time was right, probably saving all these innocent women and children in the process, got everyone to safety when you did finally go in, saved that same agent from imminent death on her way out of an explosion, and still has the wherewithal to joke about her jacket being ruined? If I were you, I'd stand the hell down, sir. She seems more than capable of taking care of herself."

I sit up straighter and turn expectantly toward Hotch, loving, devoted, protective Hotch, and somehow still enjoy reveling in my affected superiority as I smile at him.

He rolls his eyes in similar dramatic fashion, mumbles a "Yes, ma'am", and leans in for a kiss. That, I'll gladly always accept.

I turn one more time to Ms. Alvarez. Deadpan, I ask, "Do you do resumes?"


End file.
